Gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes has agreed to pay a reduced fine for a slate of alleged campaign finance violations that include improperly recording both campaign contributions and $42,000 in mileage reimbursements to himself.

The Maes campaign and Grand Junction man who filed the complaint waited Monday for an administrative law judge to approve the agreement, which lowers the originally proposed fine $7,700 to $17,500.

A lawyer for Maes said the campaign doesn’t admit all allegations, but settled to avoid a drawn out legal battle and a potential wide-ranging subpoena for Maes’ records in the run up to the Republican primary.

“This (complaint) was timed with the primary in mind,” lawyer Ross Pulkrabek said. “You can litigate during a primary season or you can move on.”

Erik Groves, lawyer for Grand Junction voter and complainant Chris Klitzke, touted the fine as the largest levied against a Colorado candidate. But Groves said without a formal hearing, questions about whether Maes properly reimbursed himself and tracked his expenses will remain unanswered.

The complaint alleged Maes improperly took a $567 contribution from a corporation when he accepted free fliers from a Denver printing company. It also alleged Maes failed to record occupations and employers for nine contributors. Pulkrabek conceded both points.

But the biggest questions revolved around the tens of thousands Maes paid himself in mileage reimbursements without providing details about where he drove and when.

“It’s more than a clerical error issue here,” Groves said. “The violations were just so over the top that it demanded action.”

A side-by-side comparison of McInnis’ work for the Hasan Foundation and an essay by Hobbs on Green Mountain Reservoir finds numerous examples of sentences, and even whole paragraphs, that are identical.

“There are definite similarities,” Hobbs said in a statement released through the court after he reviewed examples provided by The Denver Post. “I would expect there would be some attribution.”

In a memo accompanying the work when it was turned in to the Hasan Foundation for publication, McInnis wrote that it was all original work and in its final form.

McInnis refused to comment for this story. His campaign’s spokesman, Sean Duffy, acknowledged the similarities between the work of Hobbs and McInnis, and blamed a researcher who worked with McInnis on the articles.

Rolly Fischer, an engineer who worked at the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Duffy said, was the one who handled the portions that used Hobbs’ work without attribution.

Colorado Pols frequently wins praise from outsiders. The site consistently offers commentary that shapes the discourse and political news of the day, and attracts some of the best political minds in the state to engage in its lively exchanges.

The pseudonyms who run Colorado Pols, and who make up its community, have deftly mastered the many advantages of value-added aggregation, and the website has established an intensely loyal following.

Meanwhile, The Denver Post, as a full-service media organization, with its large paid staff and resources, has more advantages than any other media outlet in the Rocky Mountain West.

Yet the Denver Post-Colorado Pols dispute isn’t the David and Goliath struggle it might seem.

The Coloradoan has a story today that says the state is on track to a record year for oil and gas drilling — this despite the new energy extraction regulations that are a hot topic of debate in the governor’s race.

The story cites Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data in stating that so far in 2010, Colorado has approved 3,100 drilling permit applications, which is more than any other Rocky Mountain state and Kansas.

“I don’t know that we’re hearing from industry that the rules are job-killing,” said Thom Kerr, permit technical services manager for the COGCC. “They don’t give me that feedback.”

You might think the news that drilling activity is up would take some of the steam out of the issue in the governor’s race, but I would guess not. So long as the scarcity of jobs is an issue, particularly on the Western Slope, expect the issue of oil and gas regs to continue to come up.

At the end of the story, the Scott McInnis folks are quoted in what appears to me to be an effort to cast doubt on the accuracy or meaning of the drill permit numbers. This is what Sean Duffy, McInnis spokesman, says:

“The commission is clearly engaging in a strong public-relations effort to paper over the damage the rules have done to the industry,” he said. “No question the cost of doing business for these companies has increased.”

But in an interview with Pappas, Buck offers at least one key reason he’s no Sharron Angle.

Buck says he so far has returned every call ever made to him by a reporter. Angle, meanwhile, has become infamous for dodging traditional journalists.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, the Weld County district attorney acknowledged the similarities between his contest and those of Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida and Sharron Angle in Nevada. It’s not hard to see.

Like those Tea Party-backed candidates, Buck was written off early in the race against an opponent with establishment support. Many expected him to drop out of the race when Norton jumped in the contest. But Buck stayed in, and in March, he won the GOP caucuses.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.